However, this month is the exception.   Instead of a retroactive downward revision, we have a fairly significant upward revision.  How is this possible?   This is a very good question, and it had me scratching my head for a bit this morning.   It turns out that we were overly aggressive in filtering trust roots that had explicit ports 80 and 443.  That is, realms such as http://pibb.com:80 or https://*.jyte.com:443 were not being counted.

Although the number of sites accepting OpenID is still a small fraction of the web, the trend here is obvious.

Demand OpenID! is a new service which enables you to demand OpenID login support from websites you visit everyday. It’s a simple website and bookmarklet that provides a “one click call to action” for requesting support at your favorite websites.

How does it work? After you sign in for the first time, you’ll be given a bookmarklet to add to your web browser. Later, when you visit a website that asks you to log in and you wish it had OpenID support, just click the bookmarklet to have your vote recorded on the Demand OpenID website. Take a look at the demands for OpenID on Twitter. The service is unique in that it requires a user to log in with their OpenID, and publicly displays their votes on the website. It shows that these are people who have OpenIDs, and want to use them at websites across the internet.

Get started at demand.openid.net.

PORTLAND, OR and OVERLAND PARK, KS (May 12, 2008)

JanRain and Positive Networks have developed a phone-based,
two-factor authentication solution specifically designed to
support users of myOpenID. myOpenID, the most popular
independent OpenID provider, is a free, fully featured, and
secure solution for users who want their own personal OpenID
identity. The new secure authentication offering, CallVerifIDTM,
is available immediately to all myOpenID users and is based on
Positive Networks’ PhoneFactor service. PhoneFactor is the
leading phone-based authentication service and does not rely on
text/SMS messages, tokens, certificates or the installation of
hardware.

OpenID is an open standard shared identity service, which enables
users to log on to different web sites and applications using a
single digital identity, eliminating the need to create and
manage separate user names and passwords for each site. OpenID
empowers users to control when, where, and how they share
personal information.

“As the adoption and usage of OpenID accelerates across thousands
of websites and applications, it is becoming increasingly
important to provide multi-factor authentication options, said
Brian Kissel, CEO of JanRain. “Adding CallVerifID powered by
PhoneFactor to the myOpenID service provides users with the best
two-factor authentication solution available.”

The new offering is based on the award-winning PhoneFactor
technology and provides simple two-factor authentication and
identity protection with far greater security than only using
passwords. This phone-based authentication service can use any
phone (mobile or landline) as a second authentication factor.
The user enters a myOpenID username and password as usual, then
simply answers an automated instant telephone call and presses
“#”. This completes the authentication process. Complete
two-factor authentication and identity protection is instantly
enabled with no need for tokens, smart cards or certificates.
CallVerifID is currently available for free to myOpenID users in
the United States and many other countries, and as an additional
service for business clients provisioning OpenIDs to both
customers and employees.

“Adding strong authentication to OpenID must be simple,
convenient and very secure if it is to work for most people.
This rules out most traditional solutions like tokens, but is
ideal for a phone-based solution like PhoneFactor, said Tim
Sutton, CEO of Positive Networks. “We think that the marriage of
OpenID and PhoneFactor will be the first really scalable
multifactor solution”.

About JanRain:
JanRain is a leading provider of OpenID technology
and solutions. Having contributed to the development of the
OpenID specifications and written many of the open source
libraries, test scripts and sample implementations, JanRain’s
source libraries power the majority of today’s OpenID-enabled
websites. JanRain manages myOpenID.com, the most popular
independent OpenID provider for consumers and businesses. Based
in Portland, OR, JanRain was a key contributor in establishing
the OpenID Foundation and provides a full range of OpenID
enablement and provisioning services.

About Positive Networks:

Positive Networks is a leading provider of security products and
services, including the award-winning PhoneFactorTM two-factor
authentication and identity protection service, and the
PositivePROTM remote access service. Awards include:
“Best-in-Class” Service Provider by Stratecast Partners, finalist
for SC Magazine Excellence Award, AlwaysON AO100, Info Security
Product Guide Product Excellence Award winner. For more
information, please call 877-668-6536 or visit
www.phonefactor.com.

Since we started providing these numbers, we’ve taken a conservative approach in what we call an RP. We strip out what appears to be purely dev testing. Anything with localhost, .local, ports other than 80 & 443 gets tossed. We also consolidate obvious related trustroots into one. For example sites like 37 signals, wetpaint and others, create many unique trustroots (which is perfectly valid), but for a truth in numbers sake we don’t count these as a separate 1000 sites, we count them as 1. Sometimes these patterns aren’t immediate obvious and we retroactively add them to a filter list. This can cause the RP count to be adjusted slightly downward over time.

At the end of April there were 13196 RP’s. At current rates, this number doubles before the kids go back to school in the fall, but I suspect we will be at a steeper growth curve before that time (more on this in another post).

“The ID Selector is what website operators and OpenID users have been demanding,” said Brian Kissel, JanRain’s CEO. “They’ve been asking platform developers to devise a better way to harness the potential of OpenID by creating a simpler, more intuitive user-experience.” For websites already enabled, ID Selector can be installed before the “next forgotten password customer call has been resolved.”

Happy Site Visitors, More Registered Users

ID Selector is the most consumer-friendly OpenID tool available to website operators. The widget-based tool can quickly increase OpenID usage and login success rates, while enabling a better user experience on more than 11,000 OpenID-enabled websites. Helpdesk services firm Axios reports that 40 to 50 percent of customer helpdesk calls are associated with forgotten passwords, with an average cost of $25 to resolve, according to the Mega Group. Additionally, converting website visitors to registered users can increase considerably by implementing OpenID.

Scott Kveton, vice president of open platforms for Confident Technologies and an ID Selector distribution partner, observes that “widespread adoption of OpenID is disadvantaged by usability concerns but JanRain’s easy-to-use universal login widget is a great step forward in that respect.”

Brand Reach and Customer Loyalty

For website operators who want to further extend their company’s brand, JanRain also offers OpenID enablement and provisioning platform solutions that create a branded and seamless OpenID experience. OpenID solutions include integration services, robust security features, enhanced customer data support, as well as SSL certificate and InfoCard integration.

Pricing and Availability

ID Selector is free for websites already accepting OpenID login and can be downloaded at www.idselector.com. An ID Selector partner program for OpenID providers is available with more information at www.idselector.com/partners. JanRain also offers turnkey solution packages to OpenID-enable websites and provision client-branded OpenIDs.

About JanRain

JanRain is a leading authority on OpenID technology and solutions. Having assisted in the development of initial and ongoing specifications and written many of the open source libraries, test scripts and sample implementations, JanRain’s source libraries power the majority of today’s OpenID-enabled websites. Based in Portland, OR, JanRain was a key contributor in establishing the OpenID Foundation to foster the growth of, and corporate participation in, the OpenID movement.

Though the library is only available in Python, it could be used as a reference implementation for those wanting to implement Information Card verification in other languages. The project is available here:

http://code.google.com/p/py-self-issued-rp/

The reason for this outage is:

Network modifications to enable new services

During the outage, the myOpenID website may be unavailable or
unresponsive, and users will be unable log into OpenID-enabled
websites using their MyOpenID accounts. The latest information about
this and other myOpenID events can always be found on
http://janrain.com/blog/

We apologize for the inconvenience. If you have any questions, please
contact us at support@myopenid.com.

With Microsoft, Google, and now Yahoo! on board it is safe to say OpenID is here to stay!

A great way to learn about OpenID is in person. The first event I attended for JanRain was BarCampPortland and it was incredible. Among other highlights I was thoroughly educated about OpenID. I was able to ask questions in the ad-hoc sessions and then follow up with fellow attendees as the event progressed.

If you will be in the San Francisco area in the very near future there is an OpenIDDevCamp coming up this weekend, January 11-January 13, 2008 at Six Apart. You can find more information on the event at the OpenID foundation blog or on Upcoming. Don’t worry if you can not attend, there are BarCamp like events being held all over the world and notes from this event will be posted in the OpenID channel on Pibb.

Interested in learning about OpenID before you jump into a *Camp event? Then you are in luck, there are a plethora of online resources available for anyone wishing to learn more about this great technology:

• JanRain’s OpenID Primer
  • OpenID channel on Pibb

• The OpenID Foundation
  • What is OpenID?
  • How do I get an OpenID?
  • Where can I use OpenID?

• Videos / Screencasts
  • ‘OpenID According to Dave’ (from Vidoop)
  • How to use OpenID (a screencast from Simon Willison)
  • Single Sign-on with OpenID (from ScreenCastsOnline)
  • Two OpenID Screencasts (Logging in to Drupal and Ma.gnolia using OpenID, from Bryght)

If you are still hungry and want to dive down deeper…

• OpenID Guides / Recipes
  • A Beginner’s Guide to OpenID at Not So Relevant
  • OpenID Guide for End Users / Logging in with an OpenID
  • Marketing OpenID (from an RP standpoint)
  • OpenID explained in 5 points
  • Plaxo recipe for OpenID-Enabling Your Site

• Reviews of OpenID Providers
  • SpreadOpenID.org - OpenID Provider Comparison
  • How well does your OpenID Provider stackup?

• Staying informed.. fire up your RSS Reader
  • Subscribe to the RSS feed for Planet OpenID
  • Setup a Google (or any) news alert for ‘OpenID’
    
  • OpenIDEnabled.com, home of JanRain OpenID librariers, has an RSS feed for library updates
    

Now that you have educated yourself about OpenID help spread the word, put on an OpenID session for your next local meetup/camp/event!